Saturday, August 22, 2015

25 Years later: Cazenovia 25th Reunion


 
Its always fun to return to Cazenovia for the reunions, this year was a special one. 25 years!!! Its hard to believe it was 25 years ago that we graduated (I also graduated in 1994-after taking a 2 year break working at a"real job" and realizing I was NOT Syracuse University Material; you really cannot go to a BIG school where your only known as a number, and despite your best effort to receive extra help never get any) from Caz where everyone knows your name.....I came back in 2002, came home with a Bachelors degree and my first born. (I had my son the weekend prior to finals and spent my senior year bouncing baby Nick from friend to friend while I attended classes.) It surprises me when I look back on those days. How did I ever do ? At any rate! Here it was our 25th anniversary. Many friends I haven't seen since those days, but Mary (left) and Jeanine (right) and Mindy (she didn't come) I have stayed connected to ever since. Between Jeanine and I is Kelly; she came as my guest and I have known her from when I had attempted to be an adult at my first real job and has been there for all of my successes and oops!
So the reunion....yep! It's like going away to school all over again. We are assigned rooms and roomates (my gals of course) and you are off to "party" just like 25 years ago. I hate to say it but we were all of 1990's graduates, but the class of 89 always comes back and they are a BIG crowd of new and old friends that when we attend the reunion we always seem to hang out with.
First order of agenda is beers in the dorm rooms.
Andrew and Brain.
Then after dinner and more drinks we all headed down town Cazenovia to the Caz Bar!
Some fun faces down town....
I'm not even going to try and identify names of everyone, Lets just say Cazenovia College Alumstook over the BAR!

















and boy did we have fun!
On Saturday Morning, we met up with Mary and took a trip back in time to this annual civil war re-enactment in Peterborough, NY
This cute little store had all kinds of fun, including yummy eats.
It is also where we found Mrs. Lincoln.
Mary is very interested in history and planned to meet with a historian about land owned by her family that may have been on the underground railroad.
While Mary discussed with the historian, Kelly, Jeanine and I took a tour of the camp. Isn't this camp set up absolutely adorable. It reminds me of GLAMPING!
Some more tents; these were a little less "cute".
More about....business.
The soldiers doing drills. its a good thing these guys and gals were not truly ready to fight, they struggled a bit to "get in line" and follow their commanders orders. Maybe it was the not so authentic TRASH cans right next to them that threw them off.



One of the original structures, and an important piece of the underground railroad.

and hey look who we found...
....Its Honest ABE!...What is he doing over on this side of the Mason Dixon Line???
Hey Abe???
...your in enemy territory.

This was a ceremony of some sort, and I am so sorry that I can't recall what for. Something to do with carrying of the casket.



line em up...

After our travel back in time, we headed to campus and had some more of our own history. We stopped at my old dorm room. (It is now converted into the safety office, but look was is forever etched in the door frame..RB (Rexi (my Nick name and PS (Paul, my once heart throb engaged to marry...to bad (total sarcasm here) he ended up hooking up and marrying one of my friends and moving to Florida.)


The infamous mailboxes. I longed for letters or packages or ANYTHING everyday. Jeanine would always get CARE packages from her mother, and I was so jealous, I lived so close to school, and I was home most weekend (my mom had to do my laundry of course..lol) that it would have been silly for my parents to send care packages, but I still wanted one.
Jeanine was so sweet, she brought me a special care package on this reunion filled will fun goodies, so said it was from her mother in Heaven. It was so sweet it made me cry.
We had an awards luncheon, where our class was recognized...(25 years) and then we headed off to paint and DRINK!
The current President, addressing his ending with Cazenovia. Then off to PARTY~!
This was so fun...painting while the drinks flowed...

Making our oath not to "dislike our paintings.." this is all for FUN!!!


Posing with a few signs...Jeanine must have said I thought this was paint by numbers all night...

There are some really amazing artist in this crowd.
Our finished products,.
This is what the picture was taken from.
The paintings were so much fun.
Mary had not signed up for the painting, so she and some of the guys went to a local winery, but we met up go dressed up and headed to the Presidents house for cocktails and presentations of the signature year. We each got Cazenovia 25 year mugs.
The spiked punch some kind of tropical drink with little umbrellas was delish too! A picture of all the signature years alumni.
Kelly even got a gift for being a guest,
This woman was so engaging.,she had some GREAT stories to tell and they were so off the wall, we had a great time with her and her Cazenovia roomate
My three beautiful friends
A quick shot of where we stayed for the weekend.
Mary began collecting drink umbrellas....I wish I got a shot at the end of the evening, she had MANY in her hair,
We caught the tail end of the general pre dinner reception and had the last of the special tropical drinks before dinner.

Can you see the umbrella's sticking out of Mary's hair.
The appetizers.
ambiance
and dessert.
Thank God....this photographer takes better pictures then I did of her.

a little dancing.
making friends.
prizes






more drinks....
more new friends.

more dancing....everyone dances when the electric slide comes on.


even got Jeanine out there.


Great picture of these two.

The class of 1989


Some new friends we met this year,
After the college reunion we all went on to another reunion with some of my old high school friends out on the lake. Lunch reunion.

My friend Mary lower right visiting from her new home in Australia. I possibly had not seen her in 20 plus years. She looks the same. Carol (left) and Brenda (middle). Four Nottingham alums.
Of course I had my other friends too,

theses beauties.
After lunch we finished up remembering when at my house.


David and Renee came down to visits too. I'm not sure what was up with Carol and David...
lovely Renee.
and here I am smiling because I just had the best three days of great friends and memories...